The Best and Worst Movies of the Summer Are Here

It’s been a tough summer for Hollywood. The summer box-office revenue in North America is down 16-percent from last year, representing the steepest decline in recent years, surpassing the 14.6-percent dip in 2014. If that weren’t enough, summer 2017 will be the first time in 10 years that the summer box office didn’t clear four billion dollars, according to comScore. The media measurement firm also adduces ticket sales have hit a 25-year low. Yikes.

But there is good news. The Hollywood Reporter notes that the international box office has saved a number of summer films that underperformed here. In fact, numbers in the U.S. may be falling, but the international box office is up three percent.

“The lesson for Hollywood this summer is that every movie counts when it comes to box office and there are no ‘throwaway’ titles,” Paul Dergarabedian of comScore says. “At least three tentpoles missed the mark in North America as well as a handful of R-rated comedies that left audiences frowning, and the missing revenue from those failures could arguably have left a $500 million-plus void in the marketplace.”

It was a terrible summer for the film industry, that much is certain. But which films were the worst of the worst? And which films saved the season from setting an even worse record? Thankfully, Rotten Tomatoes has just released the “Summer Movie Scorecard 2017”, which ranked every movie that had been released from May to August. In order to be considered, the film had to have been screened in 600 theaters and compiled more than 80 reviews. Let’s get to it.

THE WORST MOVIES OF THE SUMMER

1. THE EMOJI MOVIE (7%):
Everybody knew The Emoji Movie–wherein an emoji (voiced by T.J. Miller) is ashamed that he has multiple facial expressions when his friends only have one–was going to be complete garbage. But somehow, it was far worse than that. Critics deemed the film, “very, very, very bad” and “unfunny and a waste of time.” ”The movie was so bad, in fact, that Rotten Tomatoes’ critical consensus contains no text at all, just a “no symbol” emoji. Yikes.

2. THE NUT JOB 2: NUTTY BY NATURE (11%):
The second worst movie of the summer was also geared for children, which is plain cruel. In this, the sequel to the 2014 animated heist-comedy film, an evil mayor plans to build an amusement park in a space that is home to an assemblage of colorful critters. The wildlife then bands together to take back the park in what’s an incredibly unoriginal film. Not even the efforts of Will Arnett, Katherine Heigl, Maya Rudolph and Jackie Chan were enough to douse this dumpster fire.

3. TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (15%):
This one’s kind of geared toward kids too, isn’t it? That’s enough, Hollywood, they’re children for crying out loud. This, the fifth film of the Transformers franchise was the worst performing yet, grossing $601.1 million on a $217 million budget. One can assume a good portion of the budget was donated to the film’s star, Mark Wahlberg, who was recently crowned Forbes’ highest paid actor of 2017, banking $68 million in a 12-month period.
Some other films ranking lower on Rotten Tomatoes’ proverbial list are: All Eyez On Me (16 percent), The Dark Tower (16 percent), The Mummy (16 percent), The House (17 percent), Baywatch (19 percent), Snatched (35 percent) and Kidnap (36 percent).

THE BEST MOVIES OF THE SUMMER

1. THE BIG SICK (98%):
Produced by Judd Apatow, The Big Sick is a film based on the real-life love affair between the film’s stars Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon. The film, which premiered at Sundance, explores the relationship of an interracial who must navigate a life together despite vast cultural differences. With a meager five million dollar budget, the film banked $47 million worldwide, making it one of the highest grossing independent films of 2017.

2. BABY DRIVER (94%):
Most lauded for its killer soundtrack, Baby Driver stars Ansel Elgort as a skilled driver who’s coerced into working for a shady crime boss (Kevin Spacey). Inevitably, Elgort discovers his life is in danger when a doomed heist goes to shit. The movie ultimately proves beautiful to watch and the star power was tough to resist (the filmed features Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm as well). Most of all, critics loved the film because it was fun and isn’t that what going to the movies is all about?

3. LOGAN LUCKY (93%):
Based on the top three films of the summer, America was craving a good old-fashioned heist film, and if there’s anybody who’s proven themselves fit for the gig, it’s Steven Soderbergh. With Soderbergh’s esteemed career paired with the A-list talents of Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig and Hilary Swank and a plot that Soderbergh likened to “a cousin to one of the Ocean’s films, but a very inbred cousin,” how the hell was this movie not going to succeed?